2U . " 1&'. \;' ; '" \ 'MË y * c J ,/ ..,," ..... '- .. -= /' (j) - .0/'''' rl '- y.- Orson D. M1tnn D URING the last forty-seven years, Orson D. IVlunn, pub- lisher of the Scientific A rnerican and senior partner in one of the oldest patent-law firms in the city, has shot 9,430 duck, 3,204 bay snipe, 2,881 pheasant, 1,884 quail, 467 grouse, 381 woodcock, and fifty-four English snipe. This list by no means accounts for all the game brought to bag by Mr. l'v1 unn since he shot his first snipe at the age of nine, as he has also done away with quite a few geese, doves, wild turkey, golden plover, rail, and brant, not to mention 308 rabbits, thirty-five squir- rels, two foxes, one deer, and one opos- sum. M unn is primarily a shooter of birds, since he prefers th exercise of skill required to hit a fast-moving ob- ject to the more relaxed pleasure of aiming and firing at some comparative- ly lethargic quadruped, but he never- theless has occasionally destroyed non- birds by way of diversion. His record compares favorably with that of his father, the late Henry N. l'v1unn, who between 1867 and 1899, the year he began to take things easy, disposed of 647 quail, 555 duck, 338 bay snipe, 289 English snipe, 186 woodcock, nine- ty-one grouse, twelve rabbits, four deer, two elks, and two bears, as well as a number of brant, rail, doves, and plover. Even allowing for the fact that Orson l'v1unn has been in the field forty-seven years as against his father's thirty-three, the latter's achievements do not equal those of his son. l'v1 unn says his father was an excellent shot, as much addicted to the pursuit of game as he is, and he thinks that the chief reason he has managed to make more orphans and widows out of birds and rabbits than the senior M unn did is that transpor- tation has improved since his father's p R o F I L é 5 o :0 o BLACK DUCK-40 time. Motorcars, trains, and planes, he points out, enable sportsmen to get in touch with their victims with increasing speed and to accomplish in a day or two what would formerly have required a week's excursion. Mr. Munn, an en- thusiastic rumba dancer who is almost as happy in a night club as he is in a duck blind, has more than once left El Morocco at three in the morning after several hours' intense rum baing, driven to his place at Southampton, and set off for a day's shooting without a wink of sleep. "Sometimes, on my way out in winter, I've had to stop the car and wash my face in snow in order to keep awake," he says. Once in a blind, however, he feels completely re- stored. According to Newbold Her- rick, a first-rate shot himself and a fre- quent shooting cornpanion of l'v1unn's, the publisher of the Scientific A rnerican is the best all-round wing shot in the country. l'v1unn is inclined to be mod- est about this and says there may be rnen in the Middle West who are just as good as he is, or better. I t is possible to state with precision the numbers of birds and beasts shot by the Munns, since the father started recording these matters in a diary day by day, a custom which the son has maintained. Orson's father began his diary for him in 1893, at first writ- ing the entries himself. "Father took me down to his gun club at l'v1artins Point and we had a splendid time. This is my first trip away from home for shooting," Henry Munn noted in his son's diary on Septernber 8, 1893. At the end of the year, still speaking for Orson, he wrote, "Father says I am a remarkable shot for my years." Orson was then ten. Between 1893 and the end of 1896, Orson shot over 400 birds, apparently before he was able to write, since the first entry in his own hand, "I received a pocket kodak from Aunty Peters," was rnade on December 25, 1896. For a man of thirteen who had, in August of that year, brought down a plover with a beanshooter, Orson's handwriting was t rribly wobbly, and all further entries were his father's until 1898, in which year Orson began keep- ing the diary himself and shot 149 bay birds, fi ve duck, and three woodcock. Orson launched his own son, Orson D. l'v1unn, Jr., on a dIary four years ago, when the boy, then eleven, was aI- ready maintaining the family tradition of shooting birds, rabbits, and so on. Orson, Jr., now handles a gun as well as most grown men in the best shooting circles. Foreseeing on the day his son was born the direction in which his talents lay, Munn wrote, on January 22, 1925, "A new Gunner entered the family today, to wit, one Orson D. l'v1unn, Jr. Weight seven pounds- two black duck or one fair striped bass." A few weeks later, for the future bene- fi t of his son and heir, he listed in the diary the various guns which he owned -fifteen or more weapons costing up to $800 apiece-and composed a set of hunting rules, including, "Unload your gun in going over or under a fence" and "Don't shoot with more than one companion." l'v1unn refuses to hunt with sportsmen who drink while in the field. He has never shot anyone, but he has been peppered once or twice, un- intentionally, by companions. "I've been sprinkled from forty to fifty yards," he says. "It doesn't amount to anything. The shot sticks in your skin and you pop it out." l'v1 unn himself is the last man in the world to tell the names of people who have shot him, but it is common knowledge among sportsrnen that a few years ago Franklyn Hutton, while playing host to l'v1unn at his plan- tation in South Carolina, inad verten tly got him in the leg. The shot was ex- tracted and served on a large silver plat- ter at dinner the same evening. Although shooting birds is Orson Munn's chief extracurricular activity, salt-water fishing is a close second in his affections. His beach car, Sand Flea, a 1 929 Ford with balloon tires, is a familiar sight on the sands along the South Shore of Long Island. vVith the assistance of Peppo Russo, a friend with whom he often goes fishing and night- clubbing, l'v1unn has rebuilt the body of this vehicle to contain an ice box, a cou- ple of lockers, and provision for hanging half a dozen surf rods. M unn sornetimes races Sand Flea along the beach at fifty-five miles an hour, and when he feels he has caught up with some im- portant fish, he steps out and begins casting. He gets striped bass chiefly and has taken specimens weighing up to thirty-eight pounds. On visits to Palm Beach, he has brought to gaff a number of particularly large sailfish, two of which he has had stuffed and